Arctic Sea Ice Vanishes — and the Oil Rigs Move In

This visualization shows the extent of Arctic sea ice on Aug. 26, 2012, the day the sea ice dipped to its smallest extent ever recorded in more than three decades of satellite measurements, according to scientists from NASA and the National Snow and Ice Data Center.

The state of the Arctic, which is bad, may have just made the dreaded jump to worse. This summer, the sea ice that caps the Arctic Ocean melted to the lowest level since at least 1979, when satellites first began keeping track of ice over the North Pole. By the end of August, the National Snow Ice and Data Center (NSIDC) reported that Arctic ice had fallen to 1.54 million sq. miles (4 million sq. km). That’s nearly six times the size of Texas, but it’s still 45% less than the average for August throughout the 1980s and 90s — and as of now the ice is still shrinking.

Nor is 2012 an anomaly — the ice cap has been shrinking over the years as temperatures have increased, and now some scientists believe the total volume of Arctic ice is only a quarter of what it was 30 years ago. “By itself it’s just a number, and occasionally records are going to get set,” NSIDC scientist Walt Meier said at the end of August in a statement. “But in the context of what’s happened in the last several years and throughout the satellite record, it’s an indication that the Arctic sea ice cover is fundamentally changing.”

Environmental activists latched onto the news of the Arctic melt as evidence that climate change was happening in real time — and even faster than scientists had predicted. If the threat of an ice-free Arctic in a couple of decades doesn’t get the public’s attention, nothing will. But here’s the real irony: the most immediate impact of climate change-related Arctic ice melting will likely be the opening of vast new drilling territory for a thirsty oil industry.

According to the U.S. Geological Survey, there may be more than 90 billion barrels of recoverable oil buried in the Arctic — about 13% of the world’s estimated undiscovered reserves. So as climate change — due chiefly to the burning of fossil fuels like oil — melts the Arctic ice, it becomes easier for oil companies to send their drilling ships northward and produce more oil for us to burn, thus warming the climate even further. That’s pretty much the definition of a positive feedback cycle—and it could be bad news for both the climate and the Arctic.

The process is already underway. On September 9 — four years after it paid $2.8 billion for federal leases — Shell began drilling an exploratory well 70 miles off the northwest coast of Alaska in the Chukchi Sea. It’s the first drilling to be done in the Chukchi in more than two decades, and it comes after years of debate with the Interior Department, which finally gave Shell its permit on August 30. That approval came over the criticisms of environmental groups and some residents of Alaska’s North Shore, who worry that a spill in the icy Arctic waters could prove impossible to clean up. “There’s nothing we can do now but I worry about the weather and the animals we depend on for our survival,” Steve Oomittuk, the mayor of the Alaskan Arctic village of Port Hope, told CNN. “If Shell finds what it thinks is down there then many other companies are going to come and then it will only be a matter of time before something happens out there.”

Shell — which notes that its Chukchi wells will be drilled in water that’s only 130 ft. (40 m) deep, and should be easier to close in the event of a BP-style blowout — will have just a few weeks to drill before the cold forces operations to stop for the long Arctic winter. (Shell is petitioning the government to extend the drilling season past the September 24 deadline because the Arctic water is likely to remain ice free for weeks longer than normal — again due to climate change.) Even with the Obama Administration’s conditional green light, it will likely be years before Shell’s wells produce significant oil, and the enormous challenges of drilling and transporting oil even in a warmer Arctic won’t be easy to overcome. (Shell actually had to halt drilling temporarily on September 10, just a day after it began, because sea ice had moved into the area.) That could mean that the Arctic oil rush could unfold more slowly than energy companies want and environmentalists fear, as Ed Crooks and Guy Chazan wrote recently in the Financial Times:

The lack of infrastructure and logistic challenges meant oilfields in the offshore Arctic would have to be big – with 500 million to 1 billion barrels of recoverable crude in a single accumulation – to be economically viable … But of the more than 400 discoveries made in Alaska, only 60 have been in excess of 500 million barrels equivalent, and only 12 of those 60 were oil; the rest were gas.

Still, President Obama has signaled that he is largely unwilling to put much of the Arctic off-limits to drilling, even after the disaster that was the BP oil spill. That’s a risky move. It’s worth remembering that the Macondo blowout — which resulted in the release of nearly 5 million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico — happened in the nerve center of the U.S. oil industry, allowing ships and clean-up crews to converge rapidly on the spill site. The Chukchi Sea, by contrast, is more than a thousand miles away from the nearest Coast Guard station. And if Mitt Romney wins in November, we can expect Arctic drilling to scale up even faster. The high price of oil is showing no signs of peaking, pushing energy companies into ever more expensive and challenging territory. Shell’s drill ship — the Noble Discoverer — won’t be the last rig to ply Arctic waters. And if we remain addicted to burning that oil, the Arctic as we’ve known it could be gone for good, melted before our eyes.

You know what is really tipping the planet in the past couple decades right? The growth of the "global" economy. With China alone falling in line behind us in our "western" ways, the earth is choking. Now add India, Africa and whoever else is next and the factor by which the earth is being overwhelmed with carbon monoxide increases exponentially. I don't see anyway out of this. We can point our fingers all we like at the "greedy" corporations, or oil companies, but the truth is we all played a part in the ruining of this great planet. They wouldn't be drilling if we weren't buying.

By the time those who are in denial regarding global warm wake up it will be too late to reverse the damage. As long as those with all the money and power run the show, the situation will go steadily down hill. Future generations will pay a terrible price for our generations lack of action against these tyrannical, controlling, money grabbing people and corporations. We will be remembered for the mess that we left behind.

@Shimmana You're so right. Now what do we do to stop these monsters??? Got an idea how to end this nonsense in its tracks. First check your trash. Sounds weird. Everything that goes into our trash today is one time use, disposable mindset. How about a world wide eco capitalism where everything (within reason) that we use goes back into the "pot" to be remade into another product. From what I understand, every piece of plastic, glass, metal, aluminum, wood product, post consumer, post commercial products can be made into something new. It's a matter of setting up a method of capture, separation then off to manufacturing facilities to make it all into new "stuff". The need to drill, mine, clear cut will go down dramatically. Also many of the products used are already preprocessed. I want to take my world back and it seems like many of you do too. Let's put the oil drillers, frackers and filthy rich out of business.

We knew there would be positive feedback cycles in nature with climate change --- things like warming causing more methane to be released, causing more warming, etc. But who knew there might be feedback cycles caused by economics as well?

The real kicker is that we've carbonated the oceans enough that seawater is becoming more and more acid, corroding the shells of the forams that create most of the world's oxygen. Meanwhile we're clear-cutting forests to make danged sure that the other main source of oxygen is on life support. That's gonna be fun for the grandkids to deal with.

Drilling for more oil in the Arctic Ocean because the ice is melting. I guess none of the politicians or the oil corporates have ever seen the movie "Age of Stupid." We are well on our way to this new age. I am doing all I can to slow this tragedy down: solar hot water panels, LED lights, composting, one hybrid and one electric car, manual landscaping tools, shutting things off, wood stove, clotheslines.

Who else is willing to make the changes to at least extend our way of life out before we force nature to make changes for us?

@Plantiful I posted in reply to Shimmana above. We are ultimately responsible for our own fate and the fate of the people who will come after us. All the polluting jobs are in India, China, Indonesia - everywhere but the cities around the world that had a good economy at one time.

Economy is still there but let's make it take another form and control our fates. We need to get past the idea of disposability of everything we touch so the profiteers have no reasons to look at our national resources as financial opportunities. If their sights are on making money in an eco economy and figuring out how to not drill or mine. Every old computer, electronics, wood, glass, plastic, metal are already preprocessed and easily made into new produces using up to 2/3s less energy to produce. This is where our governments should be subsidizing with taxpayer money. Cleaning up this trashed up planet is another economy, needing biologists, geologist, companies to fix what is happening now. (Check out on google Louisiana and assumption sinkhole) Texas Brine is using salt deposits to store butane. It's shocking how our natural resources are being used to store waste and it's ending up in the Gulf of Mexico.

The point here. We need to start talking & acting and rebuilding with a sharp eye for a economy.

Why continue living without any caution? Scientists are saying that things are happening. A sane and logical person would obviously want to change what they are doing if it has been found to be harmful. you only need to lose the blind bias and open your eyes to what is happening, and yes, it's beyond natural changes that normally take thousands of years. We are working on decades here = unnatural.

The intelligence and perspectives of your candidate apparently suit you well. The Gates of Stupid are waiting for you.

Indeed, it is not great that we are causing these changes to the planetary climate systems, and I am not arguing that the climate has never been here in the past. The rate and magnitude of the change, however, is concerning.

All of my ego-boosting toys, as you call them, have removed most of our oil consumption. The hot water panels actually provide all hot water from May to September, saving about 200 gallons of oil per year, or $600.

The two cars are saving money at the gas pump. The hybrid is getting 50 mpg, and the Leaf gets about 72 mpge (equivalent), and saves about $200 per month in energy costs.

The clothesline saves about $0.50 for every load of laundry.

So, there is money to be saved (a Republican goal that is actually good) while reducing the destruction of the climate and saving our society (a Democratic goal).

Indeed, these actions do not do much as a whole, but collectively they can. My opinion as to why Republicans are against anything sustainable is that it may detract from their friends' profits (Koch Brothers, Halliburton, Exxon, etc...). It is a very.confusing position. American jobs could even be created if the government made a commitment to getting this technology working, but those silly, two-year tax credits do nothing for long term projects. We are better off giving that money to our record-breaking profits for Exxon. That is our current government's view of a "free market.". I do not expect to ever see many Republicans, who love and cherish the "free market," take a stand against that.

What objection is there for reducing oil consumption?

What objection is there to using sustainable energy, created at home?

What objection is there in showing others that life quality can still be had without burning everything in sight?

It started out well, but then the finish is disappointing; stay classy. What you speak of is not 'science'; it's dogma.

The ways of "doing our part' you enumerate are inconsequential and insignificant (the only benefit is the placebo effect it has on the ego).

Speaking of logic, there is only one logical conclusion to this line of thinking: immediate suicide. Any other act short of shrinking the carbon footprint down to zero has a degree of selfishness. Ditching your vehicles, gadgets, hot water (why do you need that?? - don't you care about the planet?), etc. would be admirable and diminish the degree of selfishness you bestow upon this planet, but please: hot water solar panels, 2 toy-feel-good vehicles? - you're just showing off with minimal "sacrifice".

On the other hand, what I'm decrying is not your made-up climate change decay but the moral decay of both the New and Old Worlds; the ditching of tradition that served us (western civ.) well for 2500 years, that's what to cry for.

The planet has been a lot hotter and a lot colder in the past and will be both again.